


poetic wax

by mildlydiscouraging



Series: the weight we carry [11]
Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Airports, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cats, Gen, Getting Together, How Do I Tag, Other, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-11 10:12:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7887130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildlydiscouraging/pseuds/mildlydiscouraging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie spends the last few days before Stephen returns imagining how it’s going to go. They picture running through the airport and dipping him into a kiss, a suitcase covered in stickers to symbolize all his travels falling over at their feet. Needless to say, their mind is running rampant straight off the edge of a cliff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	poetic wax

Charlie spends the last few days before Stephen returns imagining how it's going to go. They picture running through the airport and dipping him into a kiss, a suitcase covered in stickers to symbolize all his travels falling over at their feet. Needless to say, their mind is running rampant straight off the edge of a cliff.

It had only been a week into Stephen's semester abroad in Europe when Charlie had realized how much they loved him. It wasn't just that they couldn't fully function as a human adult without him, although Gerard had had to help them go grocery shopping and their stupid accounting homework looked like the indecipherable chalkboard scrawlings of a madman.

It was just that Charlie hadn't realized how much he really enjoyed having Stephen around—the way the entire bathroom smelled like his stupid strawberry kids shampoo hours after he took a shower, or the neat little pile of flashcards on the kitchen counter, or the way he was ridiculously uptight about keeping things neat but would leave his sweaters all over the apartment. Charlie actually _likes_ doing the crossword with him and hosting movie nights with all their friends where they got to argue over whether the popcorn setting on the microwave was really long enough or not.

Whenever Stephen had time to Skype or call, Charlie had a hard time holding it in. Stephen would be talking about some museum he went to or some ruins he saw and Charlie would just blurt out, "I love you," in the middle of his sentence.

"I love you too, dude. I miss you," Stephen would say. "Hey, how's Alan?" And Charlie would hold up the cat to their phone and wait for him to purr and the conversation would move on. Damn them for becoming such an emotionally open person.

A few weeks later, Neil comes over to visit and have Charlie help him runs lines for his next play, which, as always, quickly devolves into him quoting Shakespeare from memory instead of whatever he was actually supposed to be practicing.

"'A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is!'," Neil says from where he's sitting on Charlie's couch. "How have I not played Hamlet yet?"

"You're not blond, that's the first thing," Charlie says from the floor. They are sitting surrounded by a basket of laundry and various sorted piles, but they haven't really folded anything since Neil got there.

"Alright, first, rude. Second, hair dye exists. Third, what is up with you, dude? Where be your gibes now? Your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merriment?"

Charlie groans and falls back onto the pile of laundry they were pretending to attempt to fold. "I'm in love with Stephen."

"Wait," Neil says, leaning over the edge of the couch to look down at them, "you mean _Stephen Meeks_ Stephen? _Roommate and best friend forever_ Stephen? _That_ Stephen? You're in love with him?"

"You know damn well you're my best friend," Charlie says while still not denying anything else.

"You can have more than one best friend," Neil argues, but he's smiling nonetheless. "I can't believe you finally figured it out. How long?"

"How long have I been in love with him or how long have I known?"

"Both. Either. Yes."

Charlie sits up off the laundry before it gets too wrinkled and they have to do it again. "I don't know about the first one," they say, "but the second one is the first week he was gone."

Neil hums knowingly and nods. "You don't know what you've got til it's gone."

"Please don't quote Joni Mitchell at me when I'm in an emotional crisis."

"I'm pretty sure the only time to quote Joni Mitchell is in an emotional crisis, but okay."

Neil slides off the couch and onto the floor in front of Charlie.

"What am I supposed to dooo?" Charlie says as they lean back again, this time against the couch. The cat comes padding through the room to investigate the noise and Charlie grabs him before he sheds all over the clean clothes. "Alan, what should I do?"

"Considering what happened to his namesake," Neil says, "maybe you shouldn't be asking him for romantic advice. Also, he's a cat."

"The best cat in the world," Charlie says, punctuating every word with a sweep of their noses against each other. Alan makes a disgruntled face as best a cat can and leaps out of Charlie lap, leaving the room.

"Still a cat. And kind of an asshole, you have to admit."

Charlie throws their now empty hands in the air and says, "Alright, Mr. Smarty Pants, what have you got?"

"Well," Neil starts, picking up a shirt to fold as he talks, "first of all, I really feel like you should've asked me earlier, because I'm, y'know, engaged."

"You and Todd are perfect and have been since basically forever. I didn't think you'd be that much help."

"Second of all," Neil continues over them, "I think you should wait until he gets back to tell him."

Charlie drops the socks they were trying to match. "How the hell do you expect me to last that long? A couple days ago he texted me about this castle he went to and I almost proposed."

Neil wonders for a minute at the fact that even after being best friends with Charlie for sixteen years, they could still surprise him. "Dude, don't do that."

"I know!" They throw their hands in the air. "And he's only been gone a month, how am I supposed to last until December?"

"And near the end of December at that," Neil adds helpfully. He pats Charlie on the shoulder. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be fine. Just, whenever you feel like confessing, tell Alan instead."

Charlie looks over at where their cat is currently trying to rip apart an old sock. "He's not gonna like that."

"We all have to make sacrifices," Neil says.

The cat thing definitely works for about a month. Alan starts to get used to Charlie hunting him down under their bed or in Stephen's closet and telling him how great Stephen looked today even though he had really bad hat hair, and Charlie gets used to having even more cat hair all over their clothes.

But what Charlie really needs someone to actually have a conversation about it with, and cats can't talk. So when they hang out with Knox and mostly just talk about the pictures Stephen sent them the other day or accidentally tells Chris about how that time they kissed Stephen in high school even though they had both made an unspoken vow to never tell anyone. That one was a little embarrassing, but Chris promises not to tell anyone, and really, it's her fault for buying them all those lemon drop martinis.

Everyone humors them... most of the time. Charlie tries to bake them things in thanks for putting up with their bullshit, which don't particularly come out all that well and look more like lumpy hockey pucks than chocolate chip cookies, but everyone still eats them.

But as much as they all love Charlie, their rambling starts to wear thin. As Neil puts it one day, "It's not that we don't love you, or that we're not happy for you, but there's only so much waxing poetic interspersed with angry rants at yourself we can take."

"That sounds a little unfair," Charlie says around a mouthful of noodles. It's their monthly walk-and-talk lunch date, which they'd instituted as an attempt to at least look like they're being healthy, and Neil had a craving for lo mein. Charlie makes a mental note to reconsider the whole idea of continuing the tradition when the temperature is in the negatives. "Also, you're the last person who gets to accuse people of waxing poetically. Well, you and Todd."

"I know." Neil is struggling to walk and use chopsticks with his fingerless gloves at the same time, and he curses under his breath as he drops a noodle. "That's why I recognize that you, my friend, are handling some very poetic wax."

Charlie bats Neil's accusing chopsticks out of their face. "Shut up."

There's a beat of silence between them as Neil waits for Charlie to continue. "Wait, that's it?" He eventually asks. "No witty comeback? No snarky remark? You're slipping, dude. This is throwing you off your game."

"You don't have to tell me," Charlie says. They stop at the light and Charlie tries not to elbow anyone else in the crowd of pedestrians as they snag a piece of orange chicken out of their carton.

"But seriously," Neil continues, "we love you, but we also love talking to you about things that aren't how bright Stephen's eyes are in the sun."

After Neil mentions it, Charlie does notice how often they end up turning the conversation towards Stephen as soon as something even tangentially related to him. They try to tone it down, but then it just starts building up and that's how Charlie ends up spending the week before Stephen comes home daydreaming fantastically what will happen when he does.

When the day comes, Gerard and Charlie take the train down to meet Stephen at the airport. They'd made plans to meet Stephen at his and Charlie's apartment, but both of them were too impatient to wait that long. It had been four long months since they'd seen him, they weren't going to wait an extra four hours.

Inside the airport is almost as cold as outside, as the doors keep opening to let the freezing air and even a few snowflakes in. Charlie and Gerard make their way through the crowd waiting at baggage claim.

"He said JFK, right?" Gerard asks for the third time since they got off the train. His height gives him a ridiculous advantage but even with that he can't see any further than the stairs coming down from the actual gates.

"Yeah, Pitts, relax. It's only been..." Charlie peels back enough layers to check their watch. "Five minutes since his plane landed, give him a sec."

"What if we don't even recognize him anymore? What if he, I dunno, shaved his head or got really tan?"

"We Skyped a couple days ago, he looks pretty much the same as usual. Would you quit it?"

Gerard had started bouncing in place, landing on Charlie's foot every other bounce. He stops when Charlie pulls down on his shoulder, but the foot tapping is almost as annoying, although less likely to break any bones.

Eventually Gerard's height advantage comes in handy and he spots Stephen the second he steps foot on the first stair.

"Charlie, Charlie," Gerard says, shaking their arm. "Charlie, I think I see him. He's shorter than I remembered."

"Shut up," Charlie says automatically, but they're also standing on their toes to see if they can find their friend too. There are a lot of people on the stairs suddenly, probably all the people from the same flight, and it takes Charlie a second. Then all the right people seem to move and they spot a familiar head of hair.

Gerard starts waving his arms and yelling as soon as Stephen is in earshot. "Meeks! Stephen Meeks! Seasoned traveller returned to the homeland! Stephen!"

Stephen waves with one hand as he shrugs his backpack up higher on his shoulder. He doesn't look that much different from when Charlie and the others had seen him off back in September, but something has changed. Maybe it's just that Charlie is looking differently now.

When he gets to the bottom of the stairs, Gerard runs forward to hug him. When he actually lifts him up a little bit, Stephen laughs and gestures to be put down.

"I swear, if you grew again, I'm gonna kick your ass." Charlie hears as they walk up.

"If you can reach it," Charlie says, and Stephen looks past Gerard to see them. When he does, he comes over and hugs them for a long time. Charlie can't really feel it because of all the layers of coats and such between them, but it feels good nonetheless. Their sleeve gets caught on a zipper on Stephen's backpack and they're still connected even as they pull away. All three of them laugh and Gerard helps free them when neither Charlie nor Stephen can reach it.

"I guess you really missed me," Stephen says once everyone has their hands back.

"Well duh," Gerard says. "Why do you think we're here?" They all start to drift towards the baggage carousel to wait for Stephen's huge suitcase.

"Four hours was too long a wait," Charlie adds. Now that the actual waiting is over, they feel a lot more relaxed.

"Aw, you flatter me."

The carousel turns on, metal pieces sliding together quietly. A man on the other side of the baggage claim struggles to keep his toddler from trying to stick his fingers in the gaps and Stephen points them out as he says, "They were on my flight. From what I overheard between the kid's ridiculous questions, his parents had a wild affair while they were both married to other people and his mom's now an opera singer in Prague who never calls."

Gerard lets out a low whistle and Charlie just shrugs and says, "Europe," as if that's an explanation, but suitcases start appearing and everyone's attention is quickly pulled elsewhere. Only a few minutes pass before they spot Stephen's oversized, pale green suitcase, which had been cast off on him by his aunt and was the only thing big enough to hold all the stuff he needed for the semester. It takes all three of them to get it off the conveyor belt.

"I hope some of this is presents for us," Gerard jokes, but he quickly realizes that it could totally be true and grins. "Oh man, we totally get presents, don't we?"

"What are you, five?" Stephen says, dodging the actual question and rolling towards the exit. There definitely were presents in there, so many so that he had had to leave behind some of the clothes he didn't like as much anymore just to make room for everything.

Charlie and Gerard look at each other behind his back and nod before following him into the cold. It's only a few minutes before the next train grates into the station and Stephen spends it recounting the horrors of waiting in line at customs, and before any of them know it, they're on the train and halfway home.

Back at the apartment, everyone has gathered to welcome Stephen, and basically mob him as soon as he opens the door. Once he's hugged his way around the room, Stephen drags his suitcase into the middle of the living room and proceeds to pull out souvenirs and, yes, presents—mints and a Macbeth program from the Globe Theatre for Neil, a rock from Sylvia Plath's grave for Ginny, some notebooks from Paris for Todd, and so on.

The gathering continues on for a while as Stephen tells stories from his trip, but it isn't too long before he starts yawning. Everyone realizes that even though it's dinner time for them, it's almost midnight where Stephen was last.

After everyone makes their excuses and leaves, Stephen turns on the TV in a valiant attempt to stay awake and beat the jet lag. "Do you know how much Game of Thrones I've missed?" He says when Charlie raises an eyebrow at him. "I bet everyone's dead by now."

"And they'll still be dead in the morning," Charlie replies. They sit on the opposite end of the couch and watch as Stephen starts to nod off before the theme song finishes. Alan is curled up in his lap, softly purring almost in time with Stephen's slowing breaths, and damn this is harder than Charlie thought it would be. There's nothing they would like to do more right now than to crawl across the sofa and fit themself into the space next to Stephen and their dumb cat and fall asleep.

But they can't, so instead Charlie wakes Stephen up long enough to coax him into his room, promising to close his suitcase for him so Alan doesn't shed all over his clothes while also making a vow to themself that they'll wait for the right moment to tell Stephen how they feel, preferably when they're both awake.

Charlie makes it one day. Technically less, if you're going by twenty-four hours segments and not calendar dates. They're folding over their omelet late the next morning while Stephen sits at the table eating almost half a loaf worth of toast and they just blurt it out.

"I love you," they say.

Stephen continues munching on his toast and scrolling through something on his phone. "I love you too."

For a second, Charlie contemplates slamming their forehead into the frying pan and leaving Stephen to spatula it off so they don't have to deal with this kind of thing ever again.

"No, I mean-" They try again. "I'm in love with you."

Stephen turns around in his chair to look at them curiously. "Yeah. I know. I'm in love with you too."

Charlie completely shuts down, like the words are some sort of unconscious code for them to cease all brain functions immediately and instead just play that phrase on a loop in their head forever.

"You're gonna burn your eggs," Stephen helpfully points out.

On autopilot, Charlie turns off the stove and moves the pan... Somewhere else, they don't know, they aren't really paying attention, Stephen is in love with them?

"What."

Stephen sighs and swallows his toast before saying, "Charlie, you've told me you love me at least five times since I got home yesterday. I kinda got it."

"What? When?"

The microwave beeps and Stephen gets up to get the hot water for his tea. As the bag steeps, he counts off on his fingers, "At the airport when you saw me, when I was stomping the snow off my boots when we got home, when Alan jumped into my lap the second I sat down, when I tried catching up on all the shows I missed, when I was falling asleep on the couch and you woke me up so I could go to bed, and then this morning when I was making toast. So, six times, actually."

Charlie doesn't remember any of it, but they know they were probably thinking it and they never really have a lot of control over their own mouth, so it's entirely possible, nay, _probable_ that it happened.

"Oh," they say. "Uh... oops?"

Stephen leans his side against the counter so he can actually look at Charlie. "I can't believe you didn't notice," he says. He keeps trying to drink his tea but it's too hot to even hold for too long. "Especially since I said it back every time."

"Shit." Charlie flounders for a second. "You really...?"

"Yeah," Stephen says, taking a sip of his tea. It's still too hot, but he stirs in his sugar anyway. His propensity for over-steeping his tea and then putting too much sugar in it—item number eighteen on Charlie's "List of Cute Things Stephen Does" that definitely only exists in theory and not on a notepad in their room.

Charlie lurches forward briefly. "Can I...?"

"Yeah."

Stephen doesn't even really have time to finish the word before Charlie is grabbing his face and kissing him. Neither of them remembered to tilt their heads so their noses bump awkwardly, and Stephen's arms are trapped between them, and it is the best kiss Charlie's ever had in their entire life (which, they are proud to say, is saying something).

When Stephen manages to free his arms and his hands find their way to Charlie's waist, Charlie can feel them even through their sweatshirt, still hot from holding the mug, and they forget how to breathe or, y'know, think for a little while.

Charlie pulls away for a second to breathe and realign their faces, but Stephen is a very persistent kisser and drags them back in almost immediately.

It's unlike any of the times they've kissed as a joke or on a dare, something that used to be only a current running under the surface now the only thing they can see, and suddenly it becomes just a little too much for Charlie and they pull away again.

"Breakfast," they blurt out.

Stephen looks confused at the sudden change, although not too worried, because Charlie's hands are still playing with the hair at the nape of his neck.

"We were... Breakfast," Charlie explains without really explaining. "With the toast and the... food."

"Are you okay?" Stephen feels like he needs to ask it, just in case.

Charlie opens their mouth to answer, but then closes it and thinks for a second. "Stephen Meeks, I think you broke my brain."

"I'll get you a new one," Stephen says. He leans in to kiss them one more time before picking up their neglected tea and heading for the couch. "You wanna watch TV?"

"Will there be snuggling?" Charlie asks, but they don't need to. They already know.

**Author's Note:**

> based on a true story. the true story is when i was holding my mug of tea right after i took it out of the microwave and i almost burnt my hands. i've never kissed anyone ever.
> 
> shock and awe, neil quotes hamlet [again](http://genius.com/William-shakespeare-hamlet-act-5-scene-1-annotated). shakespeare mints: [a real thing](http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/shop/product/mints/2393). sylvia plath's grave: [in a gorgeous place](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heptonstall).
> 
> i wrote this in the middle of working on the next thing, which should b read & takes place before this, but it's not finished yet so take this first. (also bc my last fic was so mean to charlie, sorry bb.)
> 
> thank u for reading!!! i very much appreciate any & all comments and kudos.
> 
> tumblr @[moonfullofstars](http://moonfullofstars.tumblr.com)


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